CHARLESTON, South Carolina, Feb 5: US President George W. Bush on Thursday defiantly defended the war in Iraq as "an act of justice" and said he had no regrets despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction there.
"Knowing what I knew then, and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq," Mr Bush said in an impassioned defence of the March 2003 invasion during a brief trip here to tout his record on national security.
"We have not yet found the stockpiles of weapons that we thought were there," he acknowledged, but "we know Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction."
The mounting death toll among US troops in Iraq, resistance to the US-backed plan for the transfer to self-rule, and the failure to find the banned arms at the core of his case for war pose an threat to Bush's election campaign.
Democrats vying for their party's nomination to challenge him in the November elections criss-crossed this state attacking the administration's pre-war claims before holding a primary election just two days ago.
Hoping to banish those criticism from voters' minds, Mr Bush did not name names but assailed "some politicians in Washington" who opposed the war and charged they would have left America at the mercy of "a gathering threat."
"We had a choice: either take the word of a mad man or take action to defend the American people. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time," said Mr Bush, who has dropped his ironclad pre-war charges about Iraqi weapons.
David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) tasked with unearthing Saddam's supposed arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, has said that pre-war intelligence was wrong and that the stockpiles did not exist on the eve of the invasion.
But Mr Bush seized on other ISG findings, saying Saddam Hussein had "the capability" to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, had scientists and technology in place to make them, and was developing long-range missiles he was barred from having by the United Nations.
He also recited a litany of benefits he said emerged from Saddam's ouster, including Libya's announcement late last year after nine months of secret talks with Britain and the United States that it would abandon its quest for weapons of mass destruction.
"The liberation of Iraq was an act of justice, delivering an oppressed people from an evil regime. The liberation of Iraq removed a source of violence and instability from the Middle East. And the liberation of Iraq removed an enemy of this country and made America more secure," he said.
"Other dictators have seen and noted our resolve. Colonel Qadhafi in Libya got the message," said Mr Bush.-AFP
